


Boys Who Howl Together

by PaulHeymanGirl



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-30
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 10:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2385341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulHeymanGirl/pseuds/PaulHeymanGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, Dean Ambrose is a werewolf.  His teammates don't really seem to mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys Who Howl Together

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fault of a conversation on Tumblr that was, surprise, about Dean Ambrose being a werewolf. It spun off into this. Some of the ideas in here are the direct fault of [raehex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/raehex/pseuds/raehex) who's got her own very different werewolf Dean story going on which you should be reading.

The instinct hasn’t felt this strong in almost two years and Dean Ambrose paces back and forth across his hotel room because there is nobody there to tell him not to.  Nobody to insist he stop, calm down, get his ass over there and sit still for a damn minute.    
He can do whatever he wants and it’s pissing him off more and more each second.  
The moon is hanging huge outside the window.  He can feel it even with the curtains drawn.  It’s not full, that’d be a different story, it’s just a few nights into waxing.  But it’s so bright and big that it’s making him uncomfortable.  
All of this, he thinks with a growl, all of this can be blamed on Seth Rollins.  
  


* * *

  
  
He’d actually tried to be as casual as possible when he told them.  Seth had approached him and Roman about his plan for them to just crash the main roster and get themselves noticed.  And before anyone made a decision, Dean simply said “And you’re sure the whole thing with me won’t be a problem?”  
Seth shrugged.  “We’ve had issues, but I think you know this is bigger than whatever bullshit you’ve got with me.”  
“Not that,” Dean said.  “I mean, the thing where I’m a werewolf.”  
Roman took it in stride.  Of course he would, his family had been around long enough and it wasn’t like Dean was the first person with “his condition” to work for the company.  It wasn’t even like he was the only guy currently in the company with a minor case of lycanthropy, it just wasn’t something that really came up in conversation.  So of course the people you worked with year round probably didn’t know.  Hell, Dean had been blindsided when he caught Punk’s scent in the FCW locker room and realized, oh, okay, that’s who Regal was talking about when he said “Honestly, Ambrose, you give us a worse name than That Other One.”  
Seth’s reaction to Dean’s attempt at a light and conversational confession was a roll of his eyes.  “Right, come on, Dean, we’re trying to be serious.”  
“He is serious,” Roman said, shrugging his shoulders.  “It’s really not that surprising.”  
“Not surprising?” Seth asked.  “No. You’re right.  It’s just crazy.”  
Dean leaned against the wall of the locker room, crossing his arms.  “Fine, don’t believe me.”  
Seth looked unimpressed.  “No offense, Dean, but you’re not exactly the most stable, credible guy I can think of.  You want me to believe you? You’re gonna have to prove it.  I mean, actually change into a wolf in front of me.  Right now.”  
“Whoa,” Roman said, throwing his hands up and taking a step back.  “Seth, man, I know you’re new at this, but you don’t demand that kind of thing.”  
“Nah, let him,” Dean said, breaking out into a grin.  “He wants to see?  Fine.  I’ll let him see.”  
  
Dean had hoped he’d get at least a scream out of Seth, if not a panic attack or even a full-on fainting incident.  
Instead, once Dean was standing in front of him in wolf form, Seth crouched down and broke out into that stupid smile of his.  He held a hand out, motioning for Dean to come towards him.  “C’mere, boy.”  
Behind him, Roman burst out laughing.  
Dean walked forward, intending to humor Seth and maybe try to gnaw on his arm just a little as revenge.  But as soon as he got close, Seth reached a hand out and started rubbing Dean’s head, sliding his other hand to scratch behind his ears.  
“Oh my God,” Seth said in awe.  “You’re a fucking werewolf.”  He shifted his scratching location, hitting the sweet spot behind Dean’s ear.  Dean fought to keep his left hind leg from kicking. He would not give Rollins the satisfaction.  
  
Seth’s plan worked.  It worked better than even he could have predicted, Dean thought, because the three of them just fell into place with each other.  It was strange mostly because it wasn’t strange.  All of it happened so naturally.  Dean had two people, brothers, he could count on and he could trust, and they were cool with the whole werewolf thing.  
Though there were times he wished he had never told Seth Rollins about that werewolf thing.  
In the four months they’d been a team, Seth had bought Dean a flea collar, some kind of expensive grooming shampoo, a bone-shaped collar charm that had “STUD” written on it, a muzzle (which Roman had once suggested they use) and a steak-shaped toy that Dean proceeded to squeak non-stop in the car until Roman grabbed it from Dean’s hands and threw it out of the window onto the highway.  
Dean endured all of this with as little griping as possible. And if he was honest, he didn’t actually hate the shampoo, or the collar charm, really, just Seth’s constant harping on that one minor thing.  
They were in a hotel room one night a few days out from the full moon, Roman flipping idly through the TV channels, Seth on his phone typing furiously now and then, and Dean doing anything other than staying still.  
“C’mon, Dean.  Sit down or something,” Roman said.  
“Oh, sorry.  Am I bothering you?” Dean answered sarcastically, pacing and shaking his hands.    
“Yes,” Roman said.  
Dean sat down on the same bed, still twitching and tapping his feet.  “Can’t help it.”  
Roman tossed a pillow at him. “So go do something about it somewhere else.”  
Seth looked up from his phone with a smirk on his face. “Hey, Dean, if it would help, I could take you for walkies?”  
Dean finally felt something in him just give and before he could stop himself he was baring his teeth and growling at Seth, muscles tensed like he was going to attack.  
Before he could move, two toned arms wrap around him from behind and pull him down to the mattress.  “Dean!” Roman snapped, keeping his grip tight.  “Don’t make me do this, man.”  
Dean snarled in response.  
“You asked for it,” Roman said.  He forced Dean down onto his back on the bed, reached a hand under Ambrose’s t-shirt and began to rub his stomach.  
Instantly, Dean felt the tension release as he tilted his head back and rolled a little to try and direct Roman’s hand to the right spot.  When Roman took his hand away for a second, Dean looked up at him expectantly, almost whining before Roman laughed and started back in again.  
“Okay, guys,” Roman said.  “Here on out, no more dog jokes.”  He looked at Seth, his face relaxed but his eyes serious.  “Okay?”  
Seth nodded, his phone abandoned to the bedside table.  “Okay.”  
“Good.”  Roman rubbed a little higher towards Dean’s chest.  “Now, get over here and apologize.”  
Seth grinned and practically jumped onto the other side of the bed, scratching Dean’s head lightly.  
“Hey!” Dean said, his irritated tone betrayed by a huge smile on his face.  “Belly’s okay, head’s off limits.”  
“You sure?” Seth asked, his scratches trailing down to Dean’s temple and then behind his ear.  
Dean felt his leg start to twitch involuntarily.  He saw Seth look down, watching as he scratched just the tiniest bit faster.  His leg kicked out, repeatedly.  
“That’s a cramp!” Dean announced.  “That is not...oh,” he said as Roman found a good spot.  
“Cramp.  Right,” Roman said.  
Dean sighed contentedly.  “You guys tell anyone about this, I will murder you both in your sleep.”  
  
Seth doesn’t stop the jokes all together, but he does make them much less often, and the gifts all stop.  Plus, Dean can’t really hate him, he’s the only one who can find that weird spot behind his ear that feels so damn good.  
  
“You have fleas.”  
“Do not.”  
“Dean, you have FLEAS.”  
“Like you’re so perfect.”  
“Roman, I’ll hold him, you get a hose.”  
  
After a late running RAW, they were hauling their gear outside to the car when Seth heard a weird, muffled noise.  It took him a few moments before he realized the source.  
“Dean?  Are you...moaning?”  
Dean, who’d been walking with his head tilted back and looking up at the sky, quickly answered “No.”  
Seth studied Dean’s face.  “So, what were you doing?”  
“It’s stupid,” Dean said, looking away and casting his eyes down to the ground.  
“Something wrong?” Roman was trying to get a look at Dean’s face now.  
Dean just pointed up to the sky at the moon.  It was hanging low, a thin but bright waning sliver in the sky.  “Moon’s being an asshole.”  
His teammates looked up in confusion.  “But it’s not full,” Seth said.  
“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said.  “It’s big.  Bright.  Moons like that just get under my skin.”  
“You need to shift?” Roman asked.  “We can find somewhere and…”  
“No,” Dean interrupted.  “Not shift.  Feel like I need to…” his last word came out muffled.  
“What was that?” Seth asked.  
Dean waited for the length of several breaths.  “Need to howl.”  
“Don’t let us stop you,” Roman said.  
“‘s not it,” Dean growled.  
“Hey,” Roman put an arm around Dean’s shoulders.  “You can tell us.”  
“...I get embarrassed, okay?  Self-conscious or some shit.”  Dean shook his hair out.  “Always have.  Fucking hate howling alone.”  
There was a moment of silence before Seth threw his head back and howled towards the sky.  
Roman and Dean looked over at him in confusion.  Seth just did it again, this time holding it a little longer.  
Dean burst out laughing.  
“What?” Seth asked.  
“You have a fucking terrible howl,” Dean said between his laughter.  
Before Seth could respond to that, Roman threw his hair back out of his face and let out his own howl.  He then looked over at Seth and grinned.  “You gotta really put your whole body into it.  That’s the key, I think.”  
“Better,” Dean said, slowly catching on to the idea.  “Way better than Seth’s.  But you still need work.”  
Seth put his hand on Dean’s back.  “So, you gonna show us how it’s done?”  
Dean straightened himself, then with practiced ease he bowed his back, tilted his head towards the sky and let out a surprisingly authentic howl.  
Roman and Seth applauded as he finished.  From off to the side they heard Damien Sandow say, loudly, “I don’t know what they’re doing, some absurd Shield thing, I assume...”  
Dean smiled at his brothers before rolling his back again and leading all three of them in a final howl in unison.  
  
It became a Shield thing.  Seth’s howls gradually improved.  
  
“Dean.”  
“What?”  
“Dean.”  
“Whaaat?”  
“Dean!”  
“Whaaaaat?!”  
“The US Title has been held by Harley Race, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Jimmy Snuka, Roddy Piper, I could go on for awhile here.”  
“Yeah, no shit, I know that.  So?”  
“So it is not a chew toy.  Spit it out.”  
“Make me.”  
“ROMAN!  He’s doing it again!”  
  
It was in the weird cues Dean started to pick up.  A slight difference in the way Roman moved when Dean or Seth was threatened, something more intense in the set of his jaw.  Something wilder in Seth’s eyes and smile when he came off the top rope. Roman seeming to know when the full moon was coming without checking the app on his phone.  Seth damn near hanging his head out the window on nighttime drives. And while they’d always been tactile with each other, the touches felt bigger all of a sudden.  
Dean was always demanding with the guys about comfort. Specifically, about curling up and, for lack of a better word, cuddling.  But even he couldn’t exactly pinpoint the moment they all started sleeping in the same bed, piled on top of each other as if it was totally natural.  
And again, it was strange because it wasn’t strange.  
As Dean was waking up one morning, head on Roman’s chest and Seth pressed close to his side, he realized what was going on.  
He’d accidentally formed a pack.  
  
“What the HELL is your problem?” Roman yelled, pushing Dean hard into a wall backstage and holding him there.  His eyes were hard and challenging as they met Dean’s.  
Dean snarled and glared back, not wanting to surrender an inch of dominance.  
Roman grabbed Dean by his shirt to pull him away from the wall, then pushed him into it harder.  “I’m not gonna ask again.”  
“Hey!” Seth’s voice interrupted  “HEY!”  He rushed over, putting a hand on each teammate’s shoulder.  “Are we still doing this?  C’mon.”  
There were a tense few seconds before Roman released Dean’s shirt and took a step back.  Dean stepped away from the wall, tiltling his head and cracking his neck.  “Fuckin’ hurt…”  
“Oh, now you talk,” Roman growled out.  
“Stop,” Seth said.  “What the hell is going on with you two?”  
“Ask him,” Roman said, pointing at Dean.  “And see if you can get a non-canine answer.”  
“Back off!” Dean snapped.  “Just back off, already.  It’s not YOURS.”  
“What?” Roman threw his hands up in frustration.  “You’re insane.”  
Seth fought to keep his voice as calm and steady as possible.  “What’s not his, Dean?”  
“Us,” Dean said.  “This is my pack, not his.”  He pointed at Roman accusingly.  
Seth and Roman both looked back at him in surprise.  “Did you say...pack?” Seth asked.  
“Fuck.  Yes.” Dean turned and leaned his forehead up against the wall.  
“You think we’re a pack?” Roman’s voice was calmer now.  
“No,” Dean said.  “We are a pack.”  
“But me and Roman.  We’re not.  We’re not like you.”  The confusion and uncertainty in Seth’s voice sounded so out of place.  
“Pack doesn’t work that way,” Dean said, shrugging.  “It’s just this weird fucking bond.  Doesn’t usually happen with humans, but it can.”  He bit his lip, waiting for a reaction.  
“That is so cool,” Seth said in a hushed voice.  
Helplessly, Dean began to laugh.  Then, as he caught the sound of Roman doing the same behind him, he turned around to lean against the wall and laugh harder, grabbing at his sore ribs.  
They never asked Dean why he hadn’t said anything before that.  Which meant he never had to tell them it was because he was afraid of scaring them off.  
  
It was Wrestlemania week when Seth finally asked.  He found Dean out on the balcony of their hotel room, looking down at the streets of New Orleans.  
“Hey,” Seth said, leaning on the railing beside Dean.  “What’s up?”  
“Fuckin’ vampire town,” Dean said.  “Great booze, but full of bloodsucking assholes.”  
“Yeah, well...wait, vampires?” Seth asked.  
“Better off as a werewolf anyway,” Dean stretched out his shoulders.  “Vampires are all ‘oh, I got a fucking splinter, now I’m gonna die.’ Whiners.”  
“There are vampires?” Seth asked, brain stuck on that fact.  
Dean looked over at him and grinned.  “Just fucking with you.  There’s no such thing as vampires.”  
“Right, that’d be ridiculous,” Seth said.  
Dean looked back out at the city, turning his face to the sky.  “I honestly don’t know how much other shit is true.  What else really exists.  Everything I know I’ve had to pick up from the couple of us I’ve run into and some of them weren’t exactly helpful.  Figure this is shit you should learn from your pack.” He snorted out a laugh.  
Seth looked up towards the same point Dean was fixed on.  “You’ve got a pack now, though.”  
Dean smiled genuinely.  “Yeah.”  
Seth took a deep breath.  “You don’t ever think about what it’d be like if, you know, if we were actually a pack, do you?”  
Confused, Dean stepped away from the railing and looked at Seth.  “We are actually a pack.”  
“Right,” Seth said.  “But...if we were a real pack.  Like, if we were all…”  
“No.”  Dean’s tone was sharp.  “I don’t think about that.”  
Seth turned around, meeting Dean’s eyes.  “I do.”  
Dean sighed, running his hands over his face.  “Fuck, Seth, don’t do this.”  
“I am doing this,” Seth said.  
“I’m not,” Dean said, running a hand through his hair.  “It’s not happening.”  
“You can’t tell me-”  
“I’m NOT biting you!” Dean interrupted.  “You don’t know what you’d be asking.”  
“Are you about to give me some ‘it’s harder than it looks, oh my poor lost humanity’ bullshit?” Seth asked.  “Because I’ve known you for years and it’s never been an issue.”  
“It’s not, trust me.  It’s actually pretty great,” Dean said.  “But Seth.  Seth, if I fuck up trying to bite you?  I could kill you.”  
“Then don’t fuck it up,” Seth said.  “I’ve seen you shifted, you’re in control.  More in control than you are as a human most of the time.”  
Dean grabbed Seth’s shoulders. “This would be different.  For a lot of reasons.  I could maul you to death.  There wouldn’t be enough left for them to identify you.”  
Seth gave him a little smile, trusting but full of conviction.“Dean, I trust you.”  
“You shouldn’t,” Dean said, taking his hands off of Seth.  “Because I don’t trust myself.  I’m not doing it.  To you, to Roman, to anybody.”  
“Dean,” Seth said, weakly.  
Dean, softly, just said “No.”  
Seth waited for the length of a few quick heartbeats before he went back inside, leaving Dean by himself.  
  
It wasn’t until June that Seth made it clear how much that hurt him.  He punctuated the statement with chairshot after chairshot to Dean’s back.  
  
“You don’t turn on your pack.  You just fucking don’t.”  
“This your way of telling me you wanna take care of Seth yourself?”  
“Have to.  Instinct.  He hurt my pack.”  
“If things look bad…”  
“You stay out of it.  My pack.  My stray.  My job to take care of him.”  
“...are you gonna kill him?”  
“Depends on if he ends up fighting the man or the wolf.”  
“Do you wanna kill him?”  
“I don’t know.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Dean’s finally able to fall into a light sleep, tossing and turning.  Roman’s out hurt, emergency surgery for something Dean’s sure he would have noticed if he’d been around, and Seth’s a fucking traitor.  So Dean’s alone in the bed and he’s not used to it anymore.  He rolls onto his back, just unaware enough to let the howl escape.  
It’s loud, louder than he’d ever let it be if he were awake.    
Loud enough that, three floors up, Seth Rollins can hear it from where he’s laying on his side in his empty bed.    
He grabs a pillow, pulls it over his face and quietly howls.  
In a hospital bed in Nashville, Roman Reigns, the pain he’s feeling evident in his voice, joins in as well.  
  



End file.
